Haptics is a tactile and force feedback technology that takes advantage of a user's sense of touch by applying haptic feedback effects (i.e., “haptic effects”), such as forces, vibrations, and motions, to the user. Devices, such as mobile devices, touchscreen devices, and personal computers, can be configured to generate haptic effects. In general, calls to embedded hardware capable of generating haptic effects (such as actuators) can be programmed within an operating system (“OS”) of the device. These calls specify which haptic effect to play. For example, when a user interacts with the device using, for example, a button, touchscreen, lever, joystick, wheel, or some other control, the OS of the device can send a play command through control circuitry to the embedded hardware. The embedded hardware then produces the appropriate haptic effect.
Devices can be configured to coordinate the output of haptic effects with the output of other content, such as games or other media, so that the haptic effects are incorporated into the other content. For example, in a gaming context, when a game is developed, a developer can embed haptic effects that are associated with the game and represent an action occurring within the game, such as machine gun fire, explosions, or car crashes. Typically, haptic effects are added to the game late in the game development process, such as when the game developer is finishing development of the game application, or when the game developer ports the finished game application to a new platform. This generally results in the phenomena where haptic effects are added after all the audio and video effects have been developed. Because haptic effects are typically added so late in the process, it generally falls on the haptic effect developer, or some other developer, to make a decision regarding associating a haptic effect with an audio or video effect. Further, a developer typically does not have input regarding a selection of an appropriate haptic effect for an audio or video effect.